


The Root of All Evolution

by AMuseForADay



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Eventually lots of sin, F/F, Slow Burn, What would have happened if I'd written the script after 4 x 11, shoot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 11:56:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7891105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMuseForADay/pseuds/AMuseForADay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is basically based on, around, and after 4 x 11 with maybe a few incidents of season 5. (You know before they went and fudged it) Sameen is believed to be terminated by Samaritan operatives, but Root doesn't buy it and does everything she can to save Shaw, with traumatic consequences. While all the while the battle continues between The Machine and Samaritan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Root of All Evolution

**Author's Note:**

> Music Inspiration: Save you by The Moxy

Emotions. Those things that we feel too strongly, or sometimes we don't feel them at all. It was difficult to determine where I fell on the spectrum. Even when I was younger. I loved fiercely. Those that loved me. Protected me. Showed me. Just as I was willing to show them. Hannah. My mother. I would have done anything for them. And I did. For Hannah, I even killed. Not with my hands. But it was just as if I had. The beginning of a downward spiral into depravity for a cause. So love was no stranger to me. It had made me who I was. But understanding everyone else's....after knowing what I knew and seeing what I'd seen. How humanity would turn their backs on those they were supposed to protect if there was something in it for them, for their own security or gain, instead of seeing the bigger picture. How flawed and imperfect they were in a world that was already precariously tilting into turmoil from which it could never come back from.

Emotions...they were complex things. And I didn't understand mine, because I couldn't understand anyone else's. Or trust. Or believe. But |She| changed that. God let me see the truth. The error. The solutions. A digital goddess that was everyone and saw everything, even past what was happening in real time, and into the past and future....she showed me the way. Emotion. She led me to Harold....and to Shaw.

Emotions. Something that Sameen wasn't supposed to possess. A sociopath -or so they said, not really sure an Axis II personality could specifically be categorized into such a tiny little box- forever toeing the line of sadism and lack of moral code. And even from that first meeting when she stared at me, the darkness of her eyes holding her demons, and dared me to inflict pain she said she'd enjoy... I knew.... I could feel that there was something different about her. Something I could identify with that was so twisted and dark because that was just how we were born and yet....something inherent...innate that we couldn't escape. The sliver of good that was within, in the very heart and root of a thing, if only it had a purpose it could be channeled through.

We weren't broken, Sameen and I. We were just....unique.

"Tomas gave me a pretty hard sell, trying to get me to go with him and for a hot second I almost did."

I remembered smiling as I continued to walk, feeling the slightest peek of hope blossoming since the loss of God's ability to speak to me, my response was as leading as it was genuine curiosity.

"Buut?"

She'd stopped and by the gravitational pull of my everything towards her, I'd stopped too. Aware of the gravity of what she was about to say, her expression growing more serious from the smug smirk she'd been wearing to a more serious, yet sincere expression as she met my unabashedly hopeful gaze, "I guess there are some things I care about here."

"And is that why you came to see me?"

I knew she would say no. She'd already said far more than she'd even wanted to, but with that one sentence of near nonchalance she'd revealed more than what the diagnosis of her Axis II Personality disorder dictated she could feel. More than she herself believed she could feel. Just as she'd come for me at the Samaritan facility when she didn't have to. When the loss of my life wouldn't have impacted any mission and probably made her life a lot easier. I knew. God knew.

She'd whispered to me before she had to go dark.

Before the night that I realized I could feel so much more than I wanted to feel. Because I couldn't find a reason the way I could in everything else, for why it had to be that way. Sameen was never supposed to be in Wall Street, never supposed to find us. It wasn't in the plan. But she never did follow plans... or protocols. She just didn't operate that way.

Surrounded by Samaritan's operatives, down one big oaf, and running low on ammo I was almost ready to accept the end. The end that had always been inevitable. Beside the crate of who knows what, adrenaline finally gave way to allow me to feel the pain in my side, fingers touching the stain of blood that let me know I'd been hit. And once again, because none of us might make it out alive, I called her. To tell her what I might not be able to before it was all over...

"Hey Sweetie. You busy?"

"A little. Skip the verbal foreplay, Root. Why are you calling?"

Her voice....curt and clipped as it could often be in its husky tenor would always be my favorite sound, even over the one that I'd come to call friend, confidante, mother, father...everything and despite the circumstances, and the inappropriate timing, a smile formed on my lips as I answered, "Can't a couple gals take a little break from work to catch up?"

I heard her footsteps before I heard the annoyance -that was more put upon than truly annoyed- in her voice that was real, near, there with me. "No. We do not have time to catch up."

Panic yet elation seeped through my veins as I peeped around the corner of the crate to see her look down at Harold's little helper monkey who was currently bleeding out over the terribly nauseating blue floor, before glancing up at the rest of us, bluntly stating, "Ohh, you guys look like crap."

Harold stared in shock, "How did you---"

"Had to call through fifty yards of air duct. We won't make it that way. Don't worry, I've got a little gift from our friend in the bomb vest. I'll take it from here."

Ohh, I loved it when a plan came together. I watched her with almost adoring eyes as she passed me to throw the explosives into the open hallway before aiming to shoot it, causing an explosion that created a smoke screen. It was the little things like the way she angled her body over mine in a way that I could tell myself was protective, even if when asked she'd deny it vehemently. She'd been at a loss for feeling things for so long that now that she did, the very inclination made her declare the opposite.

My timing could have been far worse, but I was growing closer to the point that one never knew when I might take another bullet. Goodness knew my arms had seen more than their fair share. I was pretty sure the rest of my body was feeling a little left out of the party and I knew one of us wasn't going to make it out. It was too much to hope for. So I shielded her, as she shielded me, covering with gunfire to take out the opponents she missed while she was busy with others. In perfect harmony.

"We're so good at this together. You're gonna realize that one day."

Not just this situation, but in every moment we shared. In every word we didn't say or every tension where I could feel her on a cellular level, for months, years denying it because I couldn't understand it.

"Root. No offense..."

Which usually meant something offensive was coming.

"You're hot.."

That was a nice lead in..

We began moving towards the lift where Fusco, Harold, and the injured guard dog (No, not Bear, the other one) were already safely inside, shots echoing throughout the corridor.

"You're good with a gun.." she continued.

Okay, when was the offensive part coming in?

"Those are two qualities I greatly admire. But you and me together would be like a four alarm fire in an oil refinery."

"Sounds cozy," I quipped with an amused smile, barely missing a bullet sent my way. "I'm out of ammo, Shaw."

It occurred to me, through the sound of Harold rushing us into the lift, that she hadn't exactly said that we were implausible. Just a really bad idea and possibly the world's most amazing, yet destructive sex. Hope sprang eternal. We were together. We were alive. We were--

"What the?"

Fusco's voice drew me from the split second of happiness and relief I should have known not to feel as Harold stared at the control panel in confusion and verging dismay, "The controls aren't responding."

We stood, uncertain. All except Shaw who found the source of our salvation, in the heart of danger.

"The desk. There's an override button. Someone's gotta get to that button and hold them off."

No. But she was already taking a step outside of the lift, eyes set on the goal. The task for all of our survival. All except hers. Mindless sacrifice for someone who wasn't supposed to feel. But I felt too, and something akin to utter desolation took hold as I grabbed hold of her arms to pull her back.

"Sameen, if you even think I'm gonna let you--"

This time her voice was annoyed as she all but growled the words, "Oh, for God's sakes." She yanked away from me, turning around to face me with a look that at first read her annoyance before it shifted into something else. A switch turning off like night and day as she met my eyes that pleaded with her not to go, even if she hated me for the rest of her life for however long we had left. Because I couldn't take the loss..... More than Hannah, more than the death of my mother, or the temporary loss of God's guidance I couldn't take that...

The milliseconds turned into seconds before she rolled her eyes as if conceding she couldn't avoid it anymore, and shook her head as if this was the worst time for it to come up before she seemed to come to a quick resolve and grabbed me by my coat to pull me towards her in a kiss that stole my breath and though it lasted only a second, used as a distraction as it was a goodbye, it felt like infinity passed before my eyes before she pushed me back, leaving me to stumble against Fusco who caught me easily with one arm while I watched her pull down the gate, too shocked at first to make a sound other than the strangled noise that resembled my internal protest and watch her lock us in from the outside.

Watch as she threw herself into the fray of bullets, palm outstretched to reach the override button.

Time stood still. Slowed as if to drag out the agony and the diminishing of hope once and for all as I reached for her, the rungs of the gate, the last shred of desperation. She could still make it...The first bullet to hit her didn't take her down immediately, but I felt it as if it and each one that followed came through my own body, tearing skin to penetrate deep.

Rupturing.

Destroying.

Stealing.

And my legs felt like they could no longer support my weight as I screamed and the next struck with such force it turned her sideways as if her body was instinctively recoiling from the pain.

I wasn't aware of the descent, of being pulled back, only her...as my eyes remained frozen, unblinking, as if losing sight of her for even a second would be the end of it all. Even when the metal doors slid shut and what seemed the final shot echoed throughout my mind, I didn't close my eyes.

 

Emotions...they were part of being human. Vulnerability. Frailty. And never had I been more destroyed by them than I was in that moment as my cries filled the silence.


End file.
